No, seriously! He is! He's a normal looking frat guy type. Just looking at him, you'd never guess that he trends so far right he makes George W look moderate... And he's cute enough that I found myself hoping he was one of the typical Evangelical closet cases. (Now wouldn't that make some good blog fodder? You know me - always willing to take one for the team! LOL)

I'm always amazed at how some normal looking folks come to their warped perspectives. As an example, Ryan and I are about the same age. We're both Hoosiers. Both of us are white men. We're both Christians. We even like the same type of food! But that's about it as far as similarities go...

He thinks that employers should be able to decide not to hire a gay person if they wish. I, obviously, don't agree. He thinks that gay relationships shouldn't be recognized - whether through civil unions or marriage. I disagree. On a host of progressive vs conservative issues, we disagreed. Thankfully though, our disagreements were civil and interesting. Neither of us got upset at the other or yelled, screamed and threw things. In fact, I enjoyed his company enough to invite him to get together again soon for more conversation. (Okay, he was cute, dammit. I had to.)

I often think of those racists that claim, "I'm not being racist, I have lots of black friends..." when they're just, well, being racist and have met an African-American once. After all, what black person (or Latino, Asian, etc) regularly hangs out with KKK members? There's an inherent hypocrisy involved; if they truly had such a friend, that person would quickly set the record straight...

But now Ryan has a gay friend (although, of course, he claims others!). This friend though, will be sure to call him on the carpet for ludicrous statements and homophobic remarks. After all, friends don't let friends be bigots - even if they're cute.